Safari Edventure: Animal lover’s paradise

Safari Edventure is a tucked away animal lover’s paradise created by Glenn Freed, and his wife, Nikki Freed. Built over a filled in sinkhole in Homestead, Safari Edventure is a non-profit that aims to provide the ultimate animal experience to its visitors. What sets Safari Edventure apart from other zoos like Parrot Jungle–“It’s the people’s zoo,” said Tommy Chamberlain, Ph. D. Visitors who come to Safari Edventure, have an opportunity to interact with the animals on an almost personal scale.

Ranging from lemurs, bat eared foxes, sugar gliders, to Artic wolves, all of these animals come from one of three sources, or the three “R’s”: Rescued, Re-homed at Safari Edventure, or Rehabilitated. Any other animals that did not come from the three “R’s” were either donated to Safari Edventure through trades to other wildlife facilities, or were born inside Safari Edventure.

Besides allowing visitors to see a wide range of animals including birds, marsupials, fish, reptiles, and even hogs, Safari Edventure lets you interact with some of them. During presentations hosted at varying times of the day, visitors can learn and pet tarantulas, sloths, possums, sugar gliders, and lemurs. During a visit, anyone can step into the artic and timber wolf pens, allowing them to pet Dakota the timber wolf, and Yukon and Aurora (the artic wolves). Visitors can also hug and feed the kangaroos and wallabies.

At the entrance of the zoo, a little one-room building stands. Inside the building stands Glen’s Mother who sells food made at the zoo to visitors. Besides food, the little store also sells paintings made by the Artic Wolf Yukon, porcupine quills, and peacock feathers. Finally, Safari Edventure has bonfires at times marked on their website, http://safariedventure.com. These bonfires are a group event where anyone can come in for free.

A departure from the large aspect of places like Parrot Jungle or Zoo Miami, Safari Edventures offers a more personal feel for animal lovers.